1. Technical Field
The application relates to a beverage bottling plant for filling bottles with a liquid beverage filling material, a container filling plant container filling machine, and a filter apparatus for filtering a liquid beverage.
2. Background Information
A beverage bottling plant for filling bottles with a liquid beverage filling material can possibly comprise a beverage filling machine with a plurality of beverage filling positions, each beverage filling position having a beverage filling device for filling bottles with liquid beverage filling material. The filling devices may have an apparatus being configured to introduce a predetermined volume of liquid beverage filling material into the interior of bottles to a substantially predetermined level of liquid beverage filling material, and the apparatus configured to introduce a predetermined flow of liquid beverage filling material comprising apparatus being configured to terminate the filling of beverage bottles upon liquid beverage filling material reaching said substantially predetermined level in bottles. There may also be provided a conveyer arrangement being configured and disposed to move bottles, for example, from an inspecting machine to the filling machine. Upon filling, a closing station closes filled bottles. There may further be provided a conveyer arrangement configured to transfer filled bottles from the filling machine to the closing station. Next, filled bottles are usually labeled in a labeling station after closing.
The prior art comprises numerous filter apparatus.
For example, European Patent No. EP 0 379 054 B1 describes a filter apparatus in which several circular disk-shaped filter elements that are disposed essentially horizontally one above the other, with these filter elements being disposed between a bottom wall element and a top wall element, these elements together with the outer wall of the filter element configuring the outer housing or housing structure of such a filter. European Patent No. EP 0 379 054 B1, and its corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 5,069,791 issued to Becker et al. on Dec. 3, 1991 and entitled ‘Filter apparatus’ are hereby incorporated by reference as if set forth in their entirety herein.
Furthermore, the filter elements comprise a centrally disposed and round opening that serves, on the one hand, to provide the communication to the several filter elements and that serves, on the other hand, to provide for the introduction of the liquid to be filtered, i.e., the liquid to be filtered (unfiltrate). Each one of these filter elements comprises a separating layer that separates the chamber for the liquid to be filtered (unfiltrate) from the chamber for filtrate.
This separating layer may be formed, for example, by a slotted sieve tray, or a mesh arrangement, with such slotted sieve tray, in turn is supported on a separating plate that also forms the fluid tight separation to the next filter element that is disposed below the first-described filter element.
Among other things, for improving the filtration capacity, prior to the actual filtering, a so-called filter cake is introduced onto the separating layer by slurrying, i.e., the filter cake comprising a layer comprising filter aid.
For the purpose of flushing or, respectively, for the purpose of cleaning of such a filter apparatus, provision is made to introduce a flushing liquid or cleaning liquid under high pressure into the system. In this, the cleaning liquid is initially introduced into the filter from the exterior, with the introduction of the cleaning liquid being carried out by using at least one conduit that has a large cross-section.
Subsequently, the liquid is passed from the exterior into the chamber for the liquid to be filtered (unfiltrate) of each filter element, through holes having a comparatively small cross-section, with liquid flows arising that are essentially directed from the peripheral surface of the filter element to the round opening that is disposed at the center of the filter element.
The holes that are disposed at the peripheral surface of the filter element are, for example, arranged in pairs, whereby one of these holes is configured in such a way that the liquid that is flowing through this hole imparts a rotational movement to the filter cake, and the other hole is configured in such a way that the liquid flowing though this hole divides the filter cake into small parts such that the entire filter cake can be removed through the liquid to be filtered (unfiltrate) conduit without problems arising.
A filter apparatus in accordance with the mentioned European Patent No. 0 379 054 B1 achieves an outstanding filtering capacity, while requiring a small space and a low consumption of filter aid, such as, for example, diatomaceous earth.
It is of disadvantage in such an apparatus that there arises an unsatisfactory behavior during cleaning or, respectively, flushing or rinsing.
During cleaning and/or flushing or rinsing, the slotted sieve tray is also to be cleaned so as to be free of filter residues adhering thereto. For this, the back side of the slotted sieve tray is contacted with rinsing or flushing liquid, with the rinsing or flushing liquid being introduced into the filter elements through the filtrate conduit. The rinsing or flushing liquid flows through the slotted sieve tray, entering from the filtrate side, to the liquid to be filtered (unfiltrate) side and along this course removes filter residues adhering to the slotted sieve tray.
The disadvantages already mentioned herein above reside therein that the rinsing or flushing liquid is introduced with a predetermined stream volume that can not be increased in a selective manner, which stream volume needs to be distributed, due to the spatial arrangements, to a plurality of filter elements. In this, it also needs to be noted that these filter elements have a large area that needs to be cleaned, i.e., the circular/annular surface of the corresponding slotted sieve tray; this means that the stream velocities that can be attained within the filter elements, as a rule, are not sufficient to effectuate loosening of all filter residues or, respectively, dirt particles from the slotted sieve trays and are not sufficient to subsequently remove such filter residues or, respectively, dirt particles.
The resulting reduction of the stream velocity is particularly pronounced when one compares the cross-sectional areas of the delivery conduit(s) for the flushing or rinsing liquid with the sum of the areas of the slotted sieve trays of all filter elements.
Because these filter elements, furthermore, are disposed at different height levels, the magnitudes of the stream volumes, that, for example, reach the lowermost, the central or, however, the uppermost filter element, differ substantially from one another.
The stream volume that reaches a filter element can be further reduced due to its division into a plurality of partial streams, due to the different height levels, and due to other factors that are not further described in detail herein, to the point that negative effects are present also during the removal of the filter cake.
Thus, for example, there may arise the case that the filter cakes of individual filter elements are not entirely divided or broken into smaller components and removed from the separating plane during the cleaning process, such that cleaning is incomplete and this is leading to a lowering of the efficiency of subsequent filtrations.
The effect described herein-above, that stream volumes of different magnitudes per filter element occur, is also of detriment during the normal operation by lowering the filtration capacity, because all the filter elements are not supplied optimally with liquid to be filtered (unfiltrate) and, accordingly, they can not contribute to the maximally possible extent of the filtration capacity.
This effect, as a rule, leads to an increase of the size of such filter installations, this causing increased acquisition and operating costs.